Seems to me that this problem of paying rights holders for music has largely been solved:
http://blog.tunecore.com/2012/02/apple-imatch-the-first-royalties-are-in.html
As far as discovery of music and books in stores is concerned, I'd consider that method to be dead. I don't mean just independent stores, but chain after chain is going away. Even the local Costco has shrunk the book (and music, and DVD) section and moved it off to the side behind the phone kiosk.
And the last time I had the urge to buy a specific disk I went to the trouble of going to the nearest music store and trying to find exactly what I was looking for. And when that failed iTunes got my money, because my time has value. Amazon gets my money for Kindle books for the same reason. And Netflix gets its money for movies.
And how do I find what to try next? I listen to podcasts, I've pared my twitter feed down to people I find interesting, and I read blogs. I've had better luck with those than going to a bookstore looking for a good read and finding shelf after shelf filled with vampire romance.

I've been following with considerable interest the whole Emily White furor. The nutshell version: an NPR intern named Emily White admitted that she has more than 11,000 songs on her iPod but has only ever paid for 15 CDs. This triggered an upswell in the ongoing debate about file sharing, piracy...

Best novel of the year? The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Second book of a trilogy, which frankly is a relief because
In an era where some of the biggest cultural touchstones are fantasy (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones) I would argue that getting to know the good stuff (and this is VERY good stuff) is as important as keeping track of whats considered to be important in the "literary" world

Are you a fiction reader? As you've no doubt heard, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction wasn't awarded this year, because apparently either the three nominees all sucked, or the jurors emerged from their deliberations with giant "L"s imprinted in red on their foreheads (I mean, really. If you're goi...

By Ctein Once again, as per the vox populi mandate, I'm going off-topic. Be warned: This column is guaranteed to waste your time if you read beyond the first paragraph. Why? Because the subject is my favorite web comics. If web comics don't interest you, then reading any further will waste a lit...

By Idris Khan Now this is clever. Made me smile. Assuming no foreknowledge and without Googling, any of you historians of photography care to take a guess as to what this is? The title would give it away, so I'll post it later. Mike (Thanks to Roni) UPDATE: Well, I thought as I went to bed las...

While the viewsonic does seem nice, the new 27" apple display has more resolution for not a lot more $.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC007?mco=MTkwMzg2MDg#overview
Just wondering how you chose what you chose
Alex S

Okay, having read through all the "Goldilocks Box" comments (thanks!), what would the cloud-mind / commentariat / TOP Experts Group think of this: Base Mac Mini and an Apple Magic Trackpad From Other World Computing (macsales.com): 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD, two 1.5TB external drives (one for music a...

Photos: Klavs Bo Christensen The Danish Press Photography Union has excluded photojournalist Klavs Bo Christensen from the judging for this year's Press Photo Awards due to excessive Photoshopping. I don't read Danish, but the comparisons of the submitted pictures and the raw files in the ...

While I am not overly impressed by the video capability for video's sake, being able to capture a critical moment in a resolution useable for web work does interest me.
Also, hopefully this is the precursor to better HDR capability, maybe being able to take multiple bracketed exposures at one time instead of having to wait for the mirror to flip for each exposure.
(count me as another who would prefer more control over bracketing over video)

Time for one of our periodic reader polls. Online Surveys & Market Research (Be sure to comment on TOP by using the link below; the comment link in the poll box is to leave a comment at Vizu.) Mike Send this post to a friend Note: I haven't posted any "featured" comments here, not wishing to in...